1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to an input device, and more particularly to a button structure and a keyboard structure using the button structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
Applications of input devices prevail along with research and development of input devices. A most common input device is, e.g., a keyboard, a touch panel or a mouse. Taking a keyboard for example, a keyboard includes several button structures corresponding to different characters or symbols. When the buttons are pressed by a user, signals of the corresponding characters or symbols are then inputted to an electronic device. A current keyboard button generally includes a key cap, a scissor structure and a base plate. The scissor structure is disposed between the base plate and the key cap to support the cap key and allow the key cap to vertically move relative to the base plate. A conventional scissor structure is a plastic material that is first formed by a mold opening process, followed by manually assembling two stands of the scissor structure to allow the two stands to be pivotally connected and slide against each other. However, the convention scissor structure suffers from several drawbacks. First of all, the convention scissor structure has a high mold cost and its assembly process is quite timing consuming. Also, the two stands of the convention scissor structure are pivotally connected via a short axis that easily breaks during the assembly process. Further, the plastic material offers inadequate strength and is necessarily increased in thickness in order to provide reinforced strength. The increased thickness undesirably affects an overall height of the button structure and thus fails to meet requirements for a compact design.
Therefore, there is a need for a solution that overcomes structural and assembly issues of a conventional button structure.